Supertouch buddy KAWS checks in with a visual update on ROSSON CROW's incredible solo show "Focus" at the FORT WORTH MODERN that opened on Saturday nite. Hailing from Plano, Texas, the red Corvette driving LA-based bad girl of the art world is one of the most incredible young talents on the scene who kicked ass and took names with her first solo museum show in her home state of Lone Star. The big show features a small collection of large scale works that were quickly upstaged by the Texas Rose herself who showed up at the opening decked out in a red, white, and blue sequined showgirl's outfit, exuding state pride right down to her Texas flag manicure. The DALLAS MORNING NEWS took rightful notice:

"Rosson Crow is having one of life's sweetest moments, and she may be too young to fully appreciate it. Just three years out of Yale's master's program, the 26-year-old has moved from gallery level to museum soloist with her "Focus" show, which opened Sunday at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.

This great career leap forward is happening only a few miles from her hometown of Plano, where she was known as Lauren. She became her more androgynous middle name when she launched her life as an artist ... The high-glamour Crow is visually at odds with her large-scale paintings of defunct saloons, taxidermy shops and seedy nightclubs. She likes dark, raucous spaces that have a history, and she combs through archival photographs and American history books for inspirational images. She has incorporated photographs of Abraham Lincoln's funeral cortège and the New York Stock Exchange at the turn of the century in her work." Click HERE to read more.

A featured artist in LANCE ARMSTRONG's upcoming Supertouch-curated "Stages" art show to benefit the anti-cancer LIVESTRONG foundation, Rosson Crow will be creating an original large-scale painting that will be premiered at the exhibition when doors open on July 16th at GALERIE EMMANUEL PERROTIN in Paris during the TOUR DE FRANCE. Stay tuned to ST for more updates coming soon. Meanwhile, HAVE A LOOK: Read More

If ever a new robotic product should have been introduced on "The Office" (or in the pages of The Onion), it is EXMOVERE's new MOBILE CHARIOT. A so-called "wearable robot" that is part Segway, part R2D2, the device is totally self-balancing and hands-free, allows "riders" to move from a standing to seated position while still wearing the device, and can move at speeds of up to 12 mph. Like a Segway, it is controlled by subtle body movements, mainly of the lower torso and hips. Sensors inside the cocoon-like shell of the vehicle predict the intended motion of the wearer, and according the company claims (this must be for American users), the Chariot requires "no manual dexterity, and minimal physical effort and allows wearers to closely approach and reach objects." While we'd like to believe this device was created strictly for amputees and the disabled (picture Stephen Hawking as a newly empowered super robot warrior), we're inclined to believe the rumors that America's massive obese population is quietly buying up the company's entire first run of the product in an effort to organize a secret gladiatorial league.

A 59-foot-tall "life-size" statue of the legendary GUNDAM robot is scheduled be built at Shiokaze Park on Tokyo's artificial Odaiba island this July as part of BANDAI’s "Mobile Suit Gundam 30th Anniversary Project." The statue will be a perfectly accurate rendition of the original RX-78-2 Gundam model from the 1979 anime series constructed of fiberglass-reinforced plastic over a steel frame. In an effort to awe children and induce heart attacks in the elderly, the robot will feature an automated moving head unit, and a body that emits light at 50 individual points and shoots mist from 14 different orifices. Following last week’s missile launch over the island nation by North Korea, Japanese officials are reportedly in talks with Bandi’s top brass to dispatch the fighting robot to the hermit kingdom to grapple with Kim Jong Il on his home turf. Not to be outdone, US officials are said to be considering outfitting the statue of Lincoln in DC with his own battle suit and steaming light show…

We at Supertouch have literally not purchased a single physical CD in well over a year. Given that fact, news of the imminent release of a fully remastered BEATLES back catalog in both stereo and true mono mixes accompanied by all original artwork and packaging comes brings a tear of joy to our jaded eyes. This is because the entire range of true studio albums has not been upgraded since first being transferred to CD in the 80s with some of the least dynamic, fully crap digital transfers ever produced. The NY TIMES breaks it down in full:

"Like the original set of Beatles CDs, released in 1987 and not upgraded since, the reissue series will include only the 12 albums the Beatles released in Britain between 1963 and 1970, from “Please Please Me” through “Let It Be,” along with “Magical Mystery Tour” — an American album that was originally released as a two-EP set in England — and the two-CD “Past Masters” compilation of the group’s nonalbum singles. All told, the set includes 16 CDs. (Beatles projects are typically tightly guarded; few outside EMI have heard the remasters yet.) Compilations released since 1987, including the “Beatles Anthology” series, “The Beatles Live at the BBC,” “Yellow Submarine Songtrack,” “1” and “Love,” the soundtrack for the Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas, are not included in the new series. Nor are the two “Capitol Albums” boxed sets, which presented several of the Beatles’ albums in the versions released in the United States.

The main reason collectors have been so intent on reissues of music they already own is that the 1987 CDs, like many discs released in the early years of the format, sound comparatively harsh and brittle by today’s standards. Since then, improvements in digital sound technology and remastering equipment have yielded a richer, smoother sound, and most of the major groups and artists from the 1960s — from Bob Dylan, the Byrds and Simon and Garfunkel to the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd — have had their catalogs refurbished at least once since their first appearance on CD. And the Beatles’ own recent releases, including the “Capitol Albums” and “Love” discs, showed that the band’s recordings could sound vastly better — warmer and with far greater presence — than they do on the 1987 discs." Click HERE to continue reading...

Supertouch's own resident tattoo genius SCOTT CAMPBELL will be unveiling his first major American solo show on April 11th when "Make it Rain" opens its doors at O.H.W.O.W. GALLERY in Miami. A bona fide artist-of-all-trades, Campbell will be showcasing his unique aesthetic via sculptures, paintings, drawings and photography, a sneek peek of which we see here today.

Scott Campbell was born and raised in a fishing camp, perched alongside a muddy bayou in rural Louisiana. With a clever knack for drawing and a fondness of stories, he began his career by doing illustration and assistant editing. Curiosity soon led him to experiment with tattooing and his immediate mastery of the art was undeniable. After a subsequent 18-month stint in Spain honing his craft, he packed up his skills and his tattoo machines and traveled for the next 5 years taking inspiration from the art and folklore of tattoo cultures all over the world.

In 2004, he opened Saved Tattoo in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Since then, it has grown to be the East Coast's premier tattoo shop with a devout following of celebrity clientele. Campbell has the taken the blue collar grit and lore of tattoo culture and extracted a visual language and wit that are supremely refined and deliberate. He has an uncanny ability to tell a story with any medium, flesh or otherwise.

Recently, Campbell has been featured in group exhibitions at the Ileana Tounta Contemporary Art Centre in Greece, the Massimo Carasi gallery in Milan, Italy, Colette in France, Moeller Snow Gallery in New York, and O.H.W.O.W. in Miami during Art Basel Miami Beach.

Stay tuned to Supertouch for full coverage of opening nite and for all residents of the 305, don't sleep...

It is a headline that strikes fear into the hearts of the people who make their living selling art and the shortsighted speculative art buyers who ultimately drove the market to the brink of collapse alongside the economy last year. For serious art collectors and sensible artists who managed to avoid the temptation of price gouging in the recent market, however, it is a call to arms: 2009 is a year to BUY art. The news comes today via the FINANCIAL TIMES who report that the average prices of high end work has dropped a whopping 35% after enjoying an average annual appreciation rate of 20% over the last decade. It's the largest decline since 1991 when prices fell a record 41%. Perhaps Damien Hirst's greatest talent isn't art after all, but rather timing:

ART PRICES FALL 35% AS COLLECTORS CASH IN
By Deborah Brewster, April 7 2009, Financial Times

Art prices plunged during the first quarter of the year as cash-strapped collectors looked to unload works by postwar masters that had earlier boomed in price along with the stock market.

The Mei Moses index, set for release on Tuesday, shows art prices fell 35 per cent in the first quarter, having held up during earlier months of the financial crisis. The overall index fell 4.8 per cent last year.

The decline accelerated as people who lost money in the financial crisis, including victims of the Madoff fraud, put up works for sale, often at a loss, several art world insiders said.

The selling has particularly hit works by postwar and contemporary artists, they said. The Wall Street elite had favoured such works during a seven-year boom in art prices. The best performing postwar artist, Andy Warhol, saw a decline in the value of his work. A Warhol portrait of Mick Jagger sold for $1.1m in the quarter. The seller bought it in 2006 for $1.5m.Click HERE to continue reading…

Controversial Algerian artist ADEL ABDESSEMED whose works depicting animals in often violent and fatal situations has brought his incomparable vision to American shores with his first NYC solo gallery show “Rio” at DAVID ZWIRNER. Opening last weekend to a crowd that included the awestruck alongside the aghast, the show’s crowing installation was a massive sculpture of twisted and intertwined plane wreckage that transformed the original vehicles into what closely resembled a trio of wrestling earthworms that inevitably brought to mind the crash landing of a passenger plane in the Hudson River this winter. The most divisive works, of course, could be found in the exhibition’s screening room where short films of animal fighting and abuse were screened in loops as an illustration of cultural violence not intended for the faint of heart. In fact, this is exactly the type of work Republicans usually trot out in front of Congress when lobbying against Federally subsidized arts programs. Explaining the show’s title, the artist said, “The show is called Rio, meaning river. I observe the world with the same fascination that my daughter, Rio, contemplates the big animals in the zoo that are thirsty and hungry.” Having roused the ire of Italian audiences with his “The Wings of God,” exhibition in Turin, Italy and the outright condemnation of pseudo-hippies in the Bay Area with his “Don’t Trust Me” show at the SF Art Institute (which was canceled before the scheduled end date), both of which featured similarly violent animal films, Abdessemed is boldly taking the fight for artistic expression to the front lines of the art world with the help of a gallery unintimidated by the current pervasive climate of fear and loathing. An impressive array of other conceptual works including “Music Box,” with a mechanism made from an oil drum, and “Prostitute,” a set of leather bound copies of the Bible, Torah, and Koran, each meticulously handwritten, page by page, by actual prostitutes rounds out the provocative show which, in these knee-knocking times, should be considered essential viewing for all. HAVE A LOOK: Read More

This weekend in NYC saw the return of one of the city's most elusive artists to the formal gallery scene when Supertouch's own PHIL FROST premiered his new solo show "Paperweight" at JONATHAN LEVINE GALLERY. Creating over 65 works on paper—the majority of which clocked in at a comfy and affordable 22" x 30"—the show was an explosion of color (and white out) from the so-called "street artist", who, despite gaining notoriety for first plying his trade on city walls, has strived to elude the misnomer in his professional career. A show of this kind has never before been mounted for Phil, whose imagery usually begins on canvases before spilling over onto all matter of physical ephemera, from baseball bats and footballs, to old mattresses, glass bottles, BMX bikes, and even suitcases, and proved to be an amazing spectacle in its well contained uniformity. Of course, Frost's fanbase was out in numbers to greet their art hero and art collector and onetime funnyman MIKE MEYERS even patiently waited his turn in line for a photo with Philly Phil followed by chants of "I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy," obviously not in reference to his performance in "The Love Guru." HAVE A LOOK: Read More